In this video, we explore the rich biblical foundation for diversity, examining how God created humanity with a beautiful mix of races, ethnicities, and cultures. We’ll look at the biblical references that highlight God’s intention for unity in diversity, from the Table of Nations in the Old Testament to the New Testament teachings of Jesus and the early church writings. This discussion also delves into how the Bible’s vision of diversity plays a crucial role in the church today and in our personal lives.
Bible References:
- Genesis 10:32 – The Table of Nations
- Acts 17:20-26 – Paul’s sermon at the Areopagus
- Genesis 1:27 – Created in the image of God
- Genesis 10:8-12 – Nimrod and the Kingdom of Babel
- Acts 1:8 – The Great Commission
- Acts 10:15, 34-35 – God shows no favoritism
- John 4:4-24 – Jesus and the Samaritan woman
- Matthew 1:1-17 – Lineage of Jesus (Including Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba)
- Revelation 7:9-12 – People from every nation worship before the throne
- 2 Corinthians 10:5 – Taking every thought captive
Additional Bible Stories:
- Tamar: Genesis 38:15-30
- Rahab: Joshua 2:1-16
- Ruth: Book of Ruth
- Bathsheba: 2 Samuel 11 and 12
We encourage you to reflect on these passages and consider how they challenge and inspire us to embrace God’s diverse creation and reach out to all nations with His love.
Practical Steps: Read the book of Acts and observe how Jesus worked to bring diverse groups together. Revisit the stories of the women in Jesus’ lineage and think about their impact on biblical diversity.
Transcript
Rod Hairston: I’m excited about what we’re gonna talk about today.
Jim Eaton: I am too, I am too.
Rod: Yeah, you know, when we have these conversations about biblical diversity, what I think has been a big question is, what does the Bible say about biblical diversity? So today’s a great opportunity to dive into
Jim: Let’s do it.
Rod: the biblical underpinnings for diversity.
Jim: Amen, amen, I notice often, particularly in the kind of society we’re in now, many times people think when we bring up the topic of diversity or bringing people together, peacemaking, bridge building, instantly people go out into the wider culture, and there’s so many valid lessons and insights there, and we will bring in some of those. But for us as Christ followers, what really impels us and fuels our soul is what the Word of God says about this.
Rod: I wanna give a big hearty amen to that, because God has a lot to say about diversity. I think we miss it sometimes, however, because the word diversity does not readily appear in the text of Scripture. And when it comes to this issue of biblical diversity, when it comes to race, ethnicity, and broader matters of diversity, ’cause it’s not only race and ethnicity, but it’s assumed in the Bible, and I think that’s why it’s oftentimes overlooked. It is assumed because when God created humanity on the sixth day, and then when we get to Genesis 10, we see this full emergence, if you will, of diversity happening in the human race.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: So it’s not even a question from God’s perspective, it’s a question from our perspective, because there was no video.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: There’s no video of creation. There’s no video of the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, but very clearly there are markings that humanity is a diverse, diverse bunch.
Jim: That’s right, amen. Why don’t you take us through that thought on the Table of Nations for a bit, and then I’ll move us over into the New Testament.
Rod: Sure, sure, so if we just jump off into the Old Testament, after Noah
Jim: Mmm-hmm.
Rod: survives the flood, he and his family, he has these sons, right? He’s got these sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and they become the progenitors of the human race. God says to Noah, “Be fruitful and multiply,” just as he says to Adam and to Eve, God calls for multiplication, and Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth become, as I mentioned, the progenitors of the human race.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: And so what we see are these three lines who become multiple groups of people and nations throughout human history. So Shem is the progenitor of the Semitic people, Ham, the progenitor of people of African descent, dark skinned people, Japheth of white people, right? And so we got this beautiful picture that God begins to paint not very far into scripture from Genesis 10. We start to see this mixing, and I don’t think it’s a mistake, right? It’s not a mistake, God allows this, these connections between Hamitic people, Semitic people, Japhetic people, and eventually, as Paul tells us in the book of Acts, right, he gives them places.
Jim: Yes.
Rod: On the globe.
Jim: Yes, and I think that, you know, because of the history of our country, which is a mixture, right? Because on the one hand we have these incredible ideals articulated by Thomas Jefferson and others who tried to create a society where we were saying overtly and specifically, intentionally, all people are created equal. And so this is a society where people are welcome from everywhere. But because of the fallenness of human nature, our societies also historically filled with the legacies of not living up to those ideals.
Rod: Absolutely.
Jim: And in reality, the Scripture is, has always been a guidepost for us to say, God created us with all of these different dimensions, and they reflect his ingenious creative bent because he loves to see all of the different aspects of humankind which he creates, and yet in our society, like Isabel Wilkerson, so masterfully painted in her book “Caste”, and she said in that book that what we have done in America, and she built it off what was done in India, is an arbitrary system saying here are the benchmarks. So the lighter the skin, the higher the intellect, or the higher the worth, the darker the skin, the lower. And yet what we see in Scripture as you’re articulating, is that God has created all of us masterfully and beautifully, and he’s longing for us to catch that insight.
Rod: Yes, yes, I don’t think you could say that any better. It’s a painful and unfortunate narrative that’s been created in at least our world, but this, we’re not the first, right? As America, we’re not the first to come up with this narrative of those who are higher and those who are lower, right? The whole system in America was built around this notion of how do we identify, right, those who are supposed to be inferior compared to those who are supposed to be superior. But when we go back to the Scriptures, what we see is God creating people with equal intent, if you will, right, equal value created in the image of God, right? He didn’t say, well, you’re less than the image and you’re more than the image.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Right.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: He said, you’re all created in the image of God. And all throughout the Old Testament, what we see playing out is not so much racial tension and hatred as it is, I think, spiritual political power. There’s something very interesting as you read the Scripture, right? The first societies built were built by black people, right? So when we see a guy in the Bible by the name of Nimrod, right, who would’ve built much of Mesopotamia including Nineveh, right, and then later we see the Semitic people, right, who are sort of the, the ones who are ruling societies, building societies, and then eventually we see whites doing it. I love what, oh my gosh, Dr. Weirsbe, I think it was Dr. Warren Wiersbe who said, “Isn’t it interesting that for 2000 years God gave people of Hamitic descent rule over the earth. For the next 2000 years, He gave people of Semitic descent rule over the earth, and for the last 2000 years, it’s been people of Japhetic descent.” He says, “And none of them have gotten it right, which seems,” he says, “and it seems like a good case to make, that only Jesus is gonna be able
Jim: Amen.
Rod: to make it right when He comes and rules the earth.” I loved his comment on that because he’s one of my favorite Bible commenters.
Jim: Absolutely.
Rod: So, yeah, so this, this idea that diversity is God’s plan.
Jim: Amen, amen, amen, and I think when we then move into the New Testament, and Jesus was ready to leave His disciples to ascend into heaven, the crucifixion had happened, the burial, the resurrection had happened 40 days. Now, He’s giving His parting words, and what He says to them is, “I want you to go forth, go out from where you are into your own people, Jerusalem and Judea, and then I want you to cross the tracks into Samaria to where your parents had said, don’t go, don’t hang out with them, and I want you to go.” And these were largely Galilean men. These were good old boys, right? They were not cosmopolitan. These were people who had just grown up in one place, had been taught to just live in your own town, stay with your own people.
Rod: Yes.
Jim: Jesus said, “No, this is the new kingdom. This is the kingdom of Jesus. You are to take the Gospel out to that region of the Samaritans. Then I want you to go out into the places of the world where they worship other gods, they speak other languages, and that is also to be your reality, because that’s the heartbeat of the Gospel.” Then when we go to Acts Chapter 2, I know when I was in seminary and I was being taught the birthday of the church, Pentecost and all of that, but it wasn’t until years later that I discovered just reading the text myself, that on that day, the birthday of the church, what Jesus, what God was saying through the gift of the tongues of fire and the gift of languages to that huge multitude,
Rod: And the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jim: and the presence of the Holy Spirit, He’s saying, “I want everyone to come together in the cross, in the power of the Spirit.” And it was almost like the reversal of Babel. You had all of these people
Rod: Yes.
Jim: with all of the diversity and the disparity of background, and they’re coming together around the message of Jesus and His crucifixion and resurrection. And Peter is the one who’s given the message,
Rod: That’s right.
Jim: “This is a new era, this is a new day.”
Rod: Well, and Peter resisted the era.
Jim: He did.
Rod: Right. He resisted what God was doing, if you remember when he was on the rooftop in Joppa,
Jim: That’s right, yeah.
Rod: right there on the coast of the Mediterranean, he falls into a trance. He falls asleep and God is speaking to him and he’s sending him to Cornelius’s house, right? He shows him this, you know, this sheep with these animals. He’s like, “God, I’ve never eaten anything unclean.” And God says to him, “Don’t ever call anything unclean that I’ve made.”
Jim: Yeah, that’s powerful, isn’t it?
Rod: And so he goes, he is directed by God to the Roman Empire, which is the most powerful agency, if you will, on earth, to go and begin to spread the Gospel to Gentiles. And Peter resisted that notion. He says, first of all, “I’ve never been with no unclean people, so I’m not doing that.” And God checks him.
Jim: Yeah, He does.
Rod: Right on the spot, right on the spot.
Jim: And I think it’s fascinating that God uses that metaphor of a vision, right?
Rod: Yes.
Jim: So he has to wake Peter up for Peter to see
Rod: Oh Jim.
Jim: God’s vision, which was really implanted in the Great Commission, right, but here’s Peter, the pastor of Jerusalem, of the Jerusalem church, who still doesn’t get it. And I think sometimes, this is how it really is in real time, is that sometimes God has to work with us, the church, and help us to see, help us to wake up to what God’s plan is. And all the while we’re saying we need to reach the world, but if we would just be awakened to what God’s true plan is in the Gospel, then the doors can open to reach the world.
Rod: Oh man, there’s so much to talk about along here, ’cause I want to go back to the Table of Nations,
Jim: Yeah, yeah.
Rod: right, because there are people who are represented that we see today on the earth, on the globe, right, who are represented there, who are represented now, and who would’ve been represented in the New Testament. So these people from Semitic descent, right, so these would be people who are Arabic, right? People who are Jewish, and then we see people of Hamitic descent, people are brown, the Ethiopians, the, oh man, my brain is slipping me, but people of African descent essentially,
Jim: Yes, yes.
Rod: right, who are darker skinned people. People who would come from northern Europe, right, these sort of nations around the sea, right? And so when we get to Acts, right, we see some of these people showing up
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: on the day of Pentecost. And so God is true to His word when He talks about being the God who created all of humanity
Jim: Yes
Rod: in his image.
Jim: Yes.
Rod: And he’s concerned about the redemption of all of humanity, and so the Great Commission, right, sort of pushes us
Jim: Yes.
Rod: right, go into all the world.
Jim: Yes.
Rod: and preach to all the nations, all the ethnos. By the way, whenever you see that word nations in the New Testament, it’s usually a translation of the Greek word ethnos, where we get ethnicities from,
Jim: Yes.
Rod: so the underpinnings are there biblically. I think we just gotta learn how to see it in the Bible though, Jim.
Jim: Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that has been, that is my story and my wife Natalie’s story is throughout this, you know, 30 year journey God has blessed us with, with all of the diversity and the different nations we’ve lived in, and the different peoples that have been a part of our church plant in the DC area and all of these things, and now the last couple of years in the public spaces among Muslims and Jews and leaders of all different backgrounds, the thing that just continues to fuel our soul is just being in the Word every day. And over time, the Holy Spirit just takes you to a passage you think you understand, and suddenly he says, but there’s an insight here that I want you to see culturally
Rod: Yes.
Jim: that opens your eyes. Like when Jesus says to his disciples there, when He’s talking with a Samaritan woman,
Rod: Yes.
Jim: he’s breaking two codes. He’s treating a woman with equality and respect, and then He’s speaking to a Samaritan whom He was not supposed to be doing as a Jew.
Rod: That’s right.
Jim: And so His disciples come and He’s trying to help them see what the kingdom values going on here, and all they’re concerned about is He must have gotten lunch somewhere. And He says to them, “Can’t you lift your eyes up and see the world that is right in front of you?”
Rod: Yes.
Jim: And I really think that’s what the Holy Spirit wants to do in all of us is say, the opportunities are so great right now. So much of our society right now is riven with fear and polarization and demonization, and we in the church have been given this blessed commission that runs all through the Scriptures to say, as the Holy Spirit moves in His power, God can do miracles. And I remember growing up in Bangladesh, in South Asia, and the issue there was not so much racial, it was religious. The Hindus hated the Muslims. The Muslims hated the Hindus. Everybody had stories of women raped and homes burnt and all of that, but then I remember seeing as a child, as a teenager being in church, and here were former Muslims and former Hindus, all believers, taking the Lord’s Supper together, exhibiting true love. And I thought, that’s the power of the Gospel. And that’s what we need to just walk in and celebrate in this time.
Rod: I think you’re right, Jim. The phrase that comes to mind for me is dignify everybody, dignify everybody. That’s what Jesus did. When He goes into Samaria, what He was saying to His disciples and to the broader world, and even to that community where that woman went back and began to share her experience with Jesus, dignify the woman who’s considered a half breed, dignify the woman.
Jim: That’s right, that’s right.
Rod: Right? That she’s worthy of the love of God and the Gospel. Not a Gospel that is sent to conquer, but a Gospel that is sent to compel
Jim: Yes, yes.
Rod: people toward the love of God.
Jim: Amen, amen.
Rod: You know, I couldn’t help but think as you were talking and we mentioned all of these different people who are represented in Acts Chapter 2, how many in the line of Jesus, in the lineage of Jesus, right, how many people of color are actually represented
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: in his lineage.
Jim: Absolutely.
Rod: So I was doing some research for a series that I was teaching, and it was curious to me that four of the five women who were highlighted in Scripture were women of color. So we’ve got Tamar who was from Timnah, Philistine city in Canaan, right? The Canaanites were descendants of Ham. I want you catch that, right? So the way we typically in the Western World would image someone like Tamar would probably be through the lens of the dominant culture in America, right? Rahab the Harlot, a Canaanite, right, in Jericho, which means she was probably darker than you, maybe just a little bit lighter than me,
Jim: Yeah, absolutely.
Rod: Right?
Jim: Ruth a Moabite, right, so possibly, quite possibly a mixed race from Jordan, right? So Ruth then marries Boaz, who has Hamitic blood in his lineage. So we got these darker, darker women in the lineage. And then we got Bathsheba. We know the story of David and Bathsheba,
Jim: Yes.
Rod: right? But she’s in the lineage, obviously, because Solomon, David,
Jim: Yes.
Rod: right? So Bathsheba, who’s Uriah’s wife, means daughter of Sheba. What we know in the Scripture is that Sheba is one of the places descendant from Ham. So they show up and then we got Mary, right, but Mary is from Semitic lineage. So we got a Semitic woman because it’s your mother who makes you Jewish, right, but he’s got these women from Hamitic descent
Jim: Yes.
Rod: who are part of this beautiful, powerful lineage who God does not cast out, He doesn’t write them out of the story. He writes them prominently, powerfully into the story of the Gospel of the Savior. So if He’s got Hamitic blood, and if He’s got Semitic blood and Japhetic blood, He is fit to save the whole world.
Jim: Amen.
Rod: So when we sing, he’s got the whole world in his hands,
Jim: Amen.
Rod: it is not some line that we make up.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Isn’t that exciting?
Jim: It is exciting.
Rod: Like he’s got the whole world in His hands, the blood of Jesus that flows.
Jim: That’s right, amen, amen.
Rod: I know this is new for some of our viewers, right, but this is a Jesus who understands.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: the mix of races in the world.
Jim: Yes, yes.
Rod: So when John comes onto the scene and says, I wrote a Gospel to reach the whole world so that the whole world would believe. John knew that it wasn’t just for Jewish people, it wasn’t just for Hamitic people, it wasn’t just for Japhetic people. John understands that the Roman empire,
Jim: Yes.
Rod: right, has people from every place on the planet because of their.
Jim: Yes, yes. And isn’t it interesting that so much of the unpacking of the Gospel was the revelation was given to Paul, so much of it was,
Rod: Yes.
Jim: and yet God chooses John to be the one to unveil at the end of the Bible in the Book of Revelation. Alright, so here’s the future in heaven. Here are people from all these different ethnicities, all these different language groups, all these different traditions and stories, and they’re all worshiping before the Lamb.
Rod: Wow.
Jim: And there’s no gradation.
Rod: Wow.
Jim: There’s no this group is a little bit more godly and this is a little less, or this group’s a little more intellectually, no, no, no, that, those are all ideology. 2 Corinthians 10 teaches us, whenever you encounter an ideology that is sub-biblical, it doesn’t matter if the whole world embraces it, you refute it and put everything into the obedience of Christ. And this is one of the ideologies that’s permeated America and other places throughout the world. And we simply need to say what God is talking about is such a beautiful idea.
Rod: Yes.
Jim: That all the variations come from his ingenuity and his creative genius, and he wants to see us come together and learn from and bless one another, because that’s what heaven will be like.
Rod: Oh, Jim, Jim, if we embrace this understanding of the Scriptures, it’s gonna have profound implications for how we love our neighbors,
Jim: Amen.
Rod: right? For how we see other people, how we dignify people that we don’t understand, right, we don’t know who are different from us, who think different from us, who believe different from us, who look different from us. It changes from a posture of, right, to more of a posture of “No, you’re made in the image of God.”
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Right, let’s embrace one another.
Jim: Amen.
Rod: So I had a powerful story that happened to me the other day. I can’t help but share it here.
Jim: Share it, share it. Let the man talk.
Rod: So, you know, a few years ago we moved into a neighborhood and we’re the only black family in the neighborhood. It was obvious to everybody that we’re the only black family in the neighborhood. In fact, close friend of ours came to see me, he’s like, “Are you the only blacks in this neighborhood?” I was like, “Yeah, we’re the only blacks in the neighborhood.” And so we’ve got to know our neighbors and we’ve had them over to our home and we’ve been praying for them. We’ve been inviting them to church. And so I’m in the garage a few days ago, and I hear the doorbell ringing and I couldn’t imagine, “Who’s ringing the doorbell?” because I was just in the front yard. Anyway, so I go out to the front door to see who’s there, and there’s this young woman, she’s 17 years old, and I don’t know who she is quite, but I recognize, I’m like, I think she’s one of my neighbor’s kids. And I said, “Can I help you?” She says, “Are you a pastor?” I was like, “Yes.” She goes, “Can you teach me how to pray?” I said, “You want me to teach you how to pray?” She said, “Yes, I got a big decision. I don’t know if I’m praying right. I don’t know how to pray.” I invite her into our home and start to share the Scriptures with her. And I said, “Well, one of the best ways I can teach you how to pray is to teach you how Jesus prayed.” Long story short, this lovely 17-year-old young woman who said to her friends, by the way, “I’m gonna go and knock on the pastor’s door and ask him to teach me how to pray.” She said, “I’m gonna ask.” So here’s this young woman, she’s white. I later learned by the way that her mother is Persian, her father’s white, and I’m teaching her how to pray, and she gives her life to Jesus.
Jim: Amen.
Rod: Right there.
Jim: That’s so great.
Rod: I stopped by their house the next day, ’cause I promised her a little booklet to help her begin growing her faith. She says, “I told all my friends, I’m a child of Jesus. I’m a child of Jesus now.” And it hit me, Jim, you talked about going from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, that that’s what it looks like in real life.
Jim: Amen, amen.
Rod: So I went and sat with her mom and her the next day, and come to find out her mother came to Jesus at the age of 12 years old in Belgium. Her mother grew up in Iran, and she said, “When I came to Jesus and went back to Iran, I kept my cross on knowing that I could be killed or hung, right, hung or persecuted.” She said, “But I just tucked it away.” She says, “Oh, I love Jesus.” So here we are, the black pastor, the Persian mom and the girl of mixed race descent, sitting around the table now celebrating faith and connection
Jim: Amen, amen.
Rod: the way I believe God has set it all up in the Scriptures.
Jim: Let the church say amen.
Rod: The church say amen.
Jim: Alright, we’d like to give you a call to action. What can you do? So here’s one thing that we’d like to suggest is sit down, take some time, maybe a week, let’s say, and read through the book of Acts and just ask yourself, how is Jesus bringing different kinds of people together? As you read through the book of Acts, take a week, take two weeks, however long you wanna take and ask that question.
Rod: Oh, that’s a great, I love that, I love that practical step. I think another practical step would be to take these women that I mentioned in this video, and just go back and look at them. Some of you have read about Tamar and about Rahab, right, but go back and look at them through this new understanding, right? So you can read about Tamar in Genesis 38: 15-30. You can read about Rahab in Joshua 2: 1-16. You can read about Ruth, of course, in the Book of Ruth, but especially maybe Chapter 3: 7-11. And you can read about Bathsheba, of course, and 2 Samuel Chapter 12 as she appears, and as you read about them, I want you to imagine who these women actually are. And think about this now really diverse dynamic of women in the lineage of Jesus, including his mother Mary, and what is the implication for our understanding of diversity and relationships in the Scriptures and in the real world?
Rod: Excellent.